Carry On
by jhm64892
Summary: Set a year after the plane crash, in which Lexie and Mark did NOT die, an earthquake strikes Seattle and the doctors of Seattle Grace Mercy West have to save the lives of some of their own.
1. All Shook Up

_**A/N – This idea came to me a while back and originally it was done as a script but then I decided to do it as a fanfic so it's been rewritten as one.**_

_A well I bless my soul  
What's wrong with me?  
I'm itching like a man on a fuzzy tree  
My friends say I'm actin wild as a bug  
I'm in love  
I'm all shook up_

It had been a year since the horrific plane crash that had nearly cost six surgeons and Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital was just getting to return to normal. Everyone was finally happy, a first in the lives of surgeons at the hospital. After spending a while working in Minnesota, Christina had returned to Seattle, missing the constant fight for surgeries and the life that Seattle Grace Mercy West had but most of all she'd missed Owen. After many arguments Meredith and Derek had decided to stay in Seattle, his hand now fully healed. Mark had broken up with Julia and he and Lexie were now together, although they were taking it slow, this time at Mark's insistence rather than Lexie's. April and Jackson were now happily together as a couple after Chief Hunt had realised his mistake and re-hired April.

"Is there something wrong with me?" April found herself asking her three friends as they ate their lunch.

"What do you mean? There's nothing wrong with you," Lexie replied worriedly.

"Well, you know, Jackson and I have been together for a good few months and we haven't had sex yet, barring that whole thing the night before our boards which doesn't count because we were both drunk. But I mean seriously, am I that unappealing?" She said, confiding her deepest worries about her relationship.

"Yeah and the day after you failed your boards and went near crazy because you'd 'broken your promise with god'," Christina said with sarcasm, for someone who'd only ever been in committed relationships, she really was bad at giving advice on them.

"Maybe he's just trying to take it slow, you know like Mark is with Lexie," Meredith assured her friend.

At that point they felt the ground shake, the kind of shake that makes you fear for your life, a somewhat likely thing for Seattle. Lexie, Meredith and Christina clambered to get underneath the table. April sat still as the ground beneath her rumbled and shook "April get your ass underneath the goddamn table!" Christina yelled at her friend and before April could do anything a piece of cement from the ceiling fell from above, hitting April's head, knocking her out and onto the floor. This was followed by another falling piece of concrete.

When the tremors finally stopped, Meredith and Lexie got out from underneath the table and ran to check that everyone else was okay. Seeing that only April was injured, they began work on her. They were shocked to see blood pouring from a cut on April's head and another; larger piece of cement compressed her stomach. Christina was the next to crawl out and see the scene that awaited her, "Page Shepherd!" she yelled.

"Derek's on his way back from the airport with Mark, Amy and Liz," Meredith said to her friend, not wanting to think of the possibility of what may have happened to her husband or her sister's boyfriend.

"I can do it!" Lexie exclaimed, she'd decided on neuro as her specialty and having studied under Derek for almost two years, plus having her photographic memory, she knew as much as she possibly could, if not more, for her level. She sat beside April and tried to get a good look at the cut on her head "It's a blunt force trauma to the head, if we can get the piece of cement off her stomach we need to get her a CT scan," she said calmly.

"Okay, let's try and get the concrete off her, NOW!" Christina yelled before she, Meredith and Lexie attempted to get the large, grey chunk of concrete off their friend. Even with their joint strength the three of them couldn't lift it, "We need help, Meredith go to the ER and get Owen," Christina said as calmly, her husband would be the only one capable of dealing with a mess like this.

Meredith ran as fast as her legs would let her, downstairs into the Emergency Room where she was greeted by Owen and Jackson, both of whom were beside themselves with worry. "Christina is fine but, I don't know how to say this, April's got a blunt force trauma to the head and possible internal bleeding caused by a rather large piece of concrete that's crushing her and Christina, Lexie and I couldn't get the damn thing off!" she exclaimed.

Jackson felt as though his world was spinning out of control, with everything that had happened at Seattle Grace Mercy West, the shooting, the plane crash, April had always escaped injury. Always. He felt as though his entire world was crashing down on him because that's what April was to him, she was everything. "H-how bad?"

"We won't know until we can get the concrete off of her and then get her to a CT, I'm sorry Jackson but that's all I can determine for the moment, Lexie's doing what she can with the head trauma though," Meredith replied, she spoke to him like she did the loved ones of other patients. "Dr Hunt is there any chance that you can get up there and help Christina, she seems to think that you're the only one who can help," this wasn't reassuring to Jackson and his face betrayed everything he felt.

"Okay, can you and Dr Avery take over the ER whilst I do that? There's been a car accident with four passengers that's coming in about five minutes," he told her before rushing off to the canteen.

When he reached the canteen, Owen found Christina and Lexie still trying to lift the piece of concrete, they had now been joined by Bailey. "Dammit, why the hell is this thing so heavy?" he heard Lexi yell.

"Need a bit of help?" he asked, noticing a sigh of relief from all three women he kneeled beside Christina and said "Okay, on my count, all four of us lift, got it?" his question more of a demand than a request. The three women nodded and Owen called "Three, two, one, lift!" between the four of them the piece of concrete was lifted and discarded so Bailey could check for signs of internal damage.

"We should get her a CT and an MRI to check whether she has a contusion or a concussion, Christina can you get a gurney?" Lexie announced as Bailey continued to check April's abdomen.

"She's got tenderness around the abdomen," Bailey announced.

Christina ran off to find a gurney and moments later she was back with the gurney and after they'd lifted April onto it Owen told her "I'm going to leave this with you three and get back to the ER so I can help Grey," before dashing off to the ER, he knew there'd be an influx of passengers after the earthquake and for some reason, he couldn't pinpoint why, he was worried for his surgeons who weren't currently in the hospital.

The ER was hit by an influx of ambulances when he arrived there, four of them to be precise, 'One for each passenger in the car accident, must be serious' Owen thought to himself before running to get a trauma gown. When he reached the ambulance bay the first of the patients was unloaded. "Mark Sloan, aged 39, suspected ruptured appendix, possible fracture to the left tibia and his right hip is dislocated," the paramedic yelled as Meredith rushed over to him.

When he saw Meredith, Mark immediately began worrying about Lexi "W-where's L-Lexie?" he asked his voice trembling as he worried about his girlfriend.

"Lexie's fine, not a scratch on her Mark, now I'm going to page Callie so we can get your hip back into place and then I'm going to sort out that appendix of yours, so you'll look half-decent when you next see Lexie okay?" she said kindly, since Lexie and Mark had gotten back together Meredith had become close friends with him.

"Okay," he told her as he went into a sleepy sort of state.

"Wilson, page Torres, NOW!" she yelled to one of the interns, the most capable of them all, who immediately did as she was told.

Between the two of them, Meredith and Jo wheeled Mark into a trauma room where they waited for Callie. When she eventually arrived Callie was shocked to find Mark in the trauma room. "He's got a dislocated hip which I need you to pop back into place so I can sort out his appendix which according to the paramedic might be ruptured, and then his left tibia is fractured," Meredith told her colleague.

"Okay, Wilson I need you and Dr Grey here to hold him down, now Mark this _will _hurt," she said before she tried to pop the hip back into place. A scream of pain escaped from Mark's lips as a massive crack was heard. After that Meredith injected ten mils of Morphine into Mark's arm, hoping that it would be enough to relieve her friend of some of the pain. "Is there an OR available? Wilson go and check!" Callie found herself yelling to the intern who was becoming more and more frightened by Callie's tone.

When Jo had left Callie and Meredith were left alone with their injured mutual friend "Zola's fine by the way, Arizona's with her and Sofia right now," Callie told the fellow mother, allowing Meredith to give a sigh of relief.

Thoughts of Derek entered Meredith's mind, her husband had been in the same car as Mark and she needed to know that he was alright but she thought that if she asked her friend and patient she wouldn't receive good news.

She was right at that same time, in the trauma room situated next to where Meredith, Owen was desperately trying to deal with Derek, who seemed to have a case of Cardiac Tamponade. Apparently whilst in the ambulance, Derek's injuries had only seemed superficial but once they'd arrived at the hospital he had fallen unconscious and when his shirt was ripped open Owen had noticed red blotches all over his friend's chest. He'd paged Christina, the only surgeon in the hospital who seemed capable of dealing with such a situation.

When she arrived in the trauma room, Christina saw Derek lying on the bed with Owen suturing deep cuts, she grabbed the ultrasound and carefully placed it on his chest, checking to make sure that the first guess was correct. Unfortunately it was and Christina immediately lifted the bed to a 40 degree angle before trying to find the 5th intercostal space. Quickly she reached for a needle and attached a catheter to it, she quickly pushed the needle into her friend's husband's chest and waited for the fluid to drain. When it had finished draining, she removed the needle and hoped and prayed for the best.

The situation brought back mental images of that first night after the plane crash, when Meredith had to drain Mark's pericardial sac after the four of them had saved Lexie from what was surely a horrible and gruesome death. At the thought, the cold-hearted Christina Yang began to cry uncontrollably and Owen had to stop suturing in order to comfort his wife. He brought her into a hug as she cried into his shoulder and once she'd stopped crying the pair went onto check a still unconscious Derek for other injuries, they discovered that his recently healed hand was fine but his left leg seemed to have been broken and his patella was dislocated. They paged Callie who was currently rushing Mark into surgery.

She checked her pager, "Dammit, I've got another trauma do you mind if I leave Mark with you and then come back and sort out his tibia later?" she told Meredith, quickly.

"Sure, go for it and if you see Derek tell him I'm worried," she replied before Callie rushed off to deal with Derek.


	2. Under Pressure

_**A/N – I realise that I've taken a few liberties with the storyline but the Japril and Slexie fans seem to be rather pleased with that so I'm going to continue taking those liberties.**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy that all belongs to Shonda Rhimes but if I did own it Lexie and Mark wouldn't have been killed off and Jackson and April would still be together.**_

_Pressure pushing down on me_  
_Pressing down on you, no man ask for_  
_Under pressure that burns a building down_  
_Splits a family in two_  
_Puts people on streets_

When Meredith got Mark to the OR doors she was met by Lexie and Meredith tried to hide her sister's boyfriend, who lay on a gurney and was high as a kite on Morphine. "Hey Mer, April's fine, neuro wise that is, she just had a concussion and needed a few stitches and Bailey's dealing with the internal injuries," Lexie announced to her sister as she tried to get a look at Meredith's patient.

"That's good. Hey, there's bound to be a fair few traumas why don't you go down and see if there's anything you can do?" Meredith suggested hurriedly, she wanted to make sure her sister wasn't worried about Mark and the best way to do that was by not telling her about his condition.

"Okay… who's the patient?" Lexie asked suspiciously, Meredith wasn't a very good liar, something that had been proved on many occasions.

"Just a routine appy, now I should get him to surgery and you should go save lives," Meredith said before rushing Mark into the OR, without revealing to Lexie who her patient was.

"Why didn't you tell her?" Mark asked once they were inside the OR, his voice showed worry "Is it worse than you're letting on?"

"No, no Mark nothing like that, it's just we've almost had to have Jackson sedated I don't want to have the same thing with Lexie, she doesn't take emotional stress well, you know that," she told him calmly before putting the anaesthetic mask over his face.

Outside the OR, Lexie shook off the weirdness of the conversation she'd just had and ran down to the ER. She told Jackson all she knew about April, basically the same message she'd given Meredith and was then greeted by Owen. "Lexie can you take a quick look at a patient for me?" he asked, she was suspicious but tried not to let it show.

"Sure," she said calmly "Hey do you know who Meredith's appy is?" she inquired, seizing the opportunity.

"I'm not sure," He lied, knowing full well that if Lexie knew the truth she'd most likely freak out.

"Oh okay, just wondering is all," she replied before entering a trauma room to see Amelia Shepherd lying on a hospital bed. "Oh my god!" Lexi exclaimed before busying herself, shining a light in Amy's eyes and discovering the pupils were dilated. "Umm we'll need a head CT and an MRI," she said worriedly. If it were any other patient Lexie would have been calm, but this was Amelia Shepherd, Derek's youngest sister which made her Mark's baby sister too.

"You okay Dr Grey?" Owen asked he knew that look in the eyes of a Grey sister and it never boded well.

"Just get me the damned head CT Hunt!" Lexi shouted, the words fizzling out of her mouth before she knew it. She was about to apologize but Owen had already left, presumably to get head CT.

Meanwhile in the trauma room across the ER, Cristina was watching Derek like a hawk as Callie popped his knee cap back into place. She thanked god that he was unconscious for it, she knew first-hand what that pain was like. She remembered the physical pain she'd been put through when Mark had to pop her shoulder back into place after the plane crash. She rid herself of the though as Callie announced that she'd finished and Cristina was left alone with a comatose Derek.

She edged herself closer to the bed so that she could say what she needed to say "Okay I know I don't normally get all sentimental and crap but Derek you have to fight, for Meredith and Zola's sake. I know you've done a lot of fighting, after the shooting and after the plane crash but you have to fight just once more. If you think I'm going to let you die and watch my best friend suffer through that pain you've got another thing coming Derek Shepherd," she scolded, she wasn't sure if he'd heard her or not but she could always hope.

When Callie reached OR 3, Meredith had almost finished removing Mark's appendix; she'd just finished inverting the stump so it pointed towards the caecum and was about to close up. Callie quickly scrubbed in and rushed into the OR so she could fix her best friend's fractured tibia. "Does Lexie know yet?" Callie asked, she'd seen that Lexie was in a trauma room dealing with Amy and couldn't tell whether she was taking her mind off of Mark's condition or whether she genuinely didn't know about it.

"She suspects something's up but I don't think she knows, unless Hunt told her," Meredith replied the tone of her voice full of apprehension. Meredith finished closing up Mark's abdomen and asked Callie the question that played on her mind "Did you see Derek?" her voice shook as she said the words.

"Yeah, he… he had a case of cardiac tamponade and a dislocated patella, that's what I was paged about earlier, I didn't want to tell you until you'd finished," Callie told her worriedly. Meredith understood Callie's reasoning, when Callie had been in the car accident Meredith had done the same when telling Mark.

"Thanks," Meredith said, snapping off her gloves, removing her scrub cap and surgical gown before running to her currently comatose husband.

Jackson had finished suturing the lacerations that Liz Shepherd had sustained, her only real injuries, and he was not waiting for an update on April. The lack of news concerned him; it meant that something was wrong. Lexie had told him all she knew and he'd discovered that Bailey was working to fix the internal bleeding. Jackson trusted Bailey implicitly but also knew that he should have been updated, as these thoughts ran through his mind he realised that April's parents had no idea of their daughter's condition. 'Should I wait until I know more or should I just tell them?' he asked himself.

Before he was able to answer his own question his thoughts were interrupted by one of the interns, Ross, opening the door "Dr Avery, I was told to update you on Dr Kepner's condition," he said nervously, this year's bunch of interns were an awful lot more nervous than Jackson ever remembered being, he partly blamed Meredith and her whole Medusa act although it _was _funny to watch.

"Well spit it out!" Jackson exclaimed in desperation, he knew the complications that could happen with internal bleeding and he'd been praying, literally praying, for April to be free from them.

"She's stable at the moment, Dr Bailey said the surgery may take another hour or two," Ross told him and Jackson breathed a sigh of relief "And before you ask there've been no complications," this last statement decided what Jackson would do regarding April's parents.

The moment Ross left; Jackson ran to the attending's lounge, grabbed his phone from his cubby and dialled the number he had for the Kepner's farm. He'd met April's parents on several occasions but had never felt as nervous on fearful about it "Hello, you've reached the Kepner residence, unfortunately we can't take your call right now but if you leave us a message we'll try and get to you as soon as possible," Jackson heard, of all the times April's parents didn't pick up their phone this had to be one of them.

"Hello Mr and Mrs Kepner, this is Jackson Avery, April's boyfriend speaking, April's been in an accident and she's having emergency surgery as we speak, call me as soon as you get this," he said his voice rapt with worry as he recorder the message and hung up.


	3. Dreams

_**A/N – I know I haven't updated in a while and I have, what I consider to be, a valid reason, I've been busy with my business studies assessment and my short film for media studies. I know I'm terrible but here it is: Chapter Three.**_

_Now here you go again_  
_You say you want your freedom_  
_Well who am I to keep you down_  
_It's only right that you should_  
_Play the way you feel it_  
_But listen carefully to the sound_  
_Of your loneliness_  
_Like a heartbeat, drives you mad_  
_In the stillness of remembering _  
_What you had, And what you lost_  
_And what you had, And what you lost_

Lexie looked at the scans as she stood in the examination room; her suspicions had been confirmed and Amy needed a craniotomy to reduce the swelling in her brain but Lexie's thoughts of Mark were clouding her mind 'If Amy's here and I saw Liz when I spoke to Jackson where on earth are Mark and Derek? What if Mark was hurt? What if he's dying?' she thought and allowed the tears to stream down her face. Then Meredith's unknown patient popped into her mind 'What if Mark was the patient Mer was taking to surgery? Is it that bad that she couldn't tell me?' she stopped thinking when she heard the door open, she turned to see Shadow Shepherd shut the door "Dr Nelson," she exclaimed, completely unable to hide the shock in her voice and on her face.

"Dr Grey, what have we got?" he said curtly.

"Amelia Shepherd, aged 36, needs a craniotomy due to swelling in the brain," Lexie replied, her voice equally as curt. Dr Nelson had stopped liking Lexie when she became Derek's star resident and so the pair didn't get on.

"Okay well, I'll do the procedure, I'm sure you've heard about Dr Sloan and wish to see him," Nelson told her with no attempt to hide the contempt that he felt.

"No, no I haven't I knew he was in the same car accident as this patient but that's all," Lexie told her colleague watching his laughing eyes.

"Dr Grey and Dr Torres had to do an emergency procedure, I believe he's in recovery now," he told her "You go and I'll do the surgery,"

Lexie knew that Nelson just wanted the surgery but she wanted to see Mark and so she thanked Nelson before running off to the nurses' station. "Can you tell me which room Dr Mark Sloan is in?" she asked Olivia, one of the nurses whom she'd known since beginning her internship at Seattle Grace Mercy West.

"He's in Room 201 Lexie," Olivia told her and Lexie ran down the hallway and into Mark's very white room.

When she first saw her boyfriend, Lexie was shocked, he looked nowhere near as bad as he had after the plane crash but he was still bad. His skin looked almost grey in colour as Lexie pulled up a chair and sat at his bedside holding right hand. Callie walked into the room with Sofia half asleep in her arms; she saw Lexie and smiled "He's not too bad you know, he got out with a dislocated hip, a broken tibia and a ruptured appendix. In comparison to Derek he's doing well," Callie told the woman who'd become a close friend over the space of a year.

"Why? What's wrong with him?" Lexie asked concerned for her brother-in-law and mentor. If his hand was screwed up again there was no hope of fixing it at all and Lexie hoped that wasn't the case.

"Cardiac Tamponade I'm afraid, the paramedics didn't notice it because he was high on adrenaline, I thank god Hunt noticed it in time," Callie replied as she sat down in the chair next to Lexie with Sofia in her lap, the toddler nuzzling into her mother's chest. Lexie remembered Mark and how he kept going into cardiac arrest and how many times she'd had to watch Christina revive him, she shuddered and her heart practically leapt up into her throat at the thought of it.

Suddenly Sofia began to cry for her father and both Lexie and Callie had to calm her down with soothing words like "It's okay baby girl, daddy's just sleeping," Callie remembered having to say similar things to her daughter when Mark was in a coma after the plane crash, _everything _about the earthquake reminded the doctors at Seattle Grace Mercy West hospital of the horrific plane crash.

"Why don't you go and see if you're needed in the ER, I can look after Sofia," Lexie said softly to her friend.

Callie pondered the idea for a few moments before asking "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Lexie said and Callie passed Sofia to Lexie and left the room. Lexie allowed Sofia to nuzzle into her until the child fell asleep in her arms. Since Lexie and Mark had gotten back together and out of the hospital Sofia had come to see Lexie as a third mother and Lexie had come to see the young girl as a daughter.

It was only four in the afternoon but Lexie felt slightly sleepy, she put it down to the stress of the day and allowed her eyes to rest for a few minutes.

_She could move her legs, that was good, they hurt like a bitch but at least she could feel and move them. She tried to wriggle her way out from whatever was crushing her but she couldn't, she used her left hand to search the floor for something to make noise with knowing that if she made enough noise, she'd be heard, found and hopefully saved. _

_When she found the buckle to what must have been a seatbelt she banged it against whatever was crushing her, soon enough Mark, Meredith and Christina were there and Mark was kneeling beside her, telling her that he loved her. She could feel her chest ooze what she guessed was blood, it wasn't something she'd noticed until that point. The pain was unbearable and she slowly closed her eyes._

She opened her eyes and had to assure herself that it was just a dream. She'd had the self-same dream many, many times over the previous year but never had it felt so real. She soon realised that she'd been asleep for over an hour; she sat up and hoped that Mark would wake up sooner rather than later so that she could tell him about it.

Sofia woke up soon after Lexie and Lexie bounced the child up and down in her lap as the little girl screamed with delight. Lexie beamed at the little girl as she giggled and laughed happily and they heard a deep bellow of laughter and Lexie looked up from Sofia's face to see Mark's eyelids flutter open as he laughed. "Mark!" Lexie exclaimed happily.

"Daddy! Daddy!" Sofia screamed delightedly.

"Hey Sofia, how's my special girl?" he asked with a big beaming smile plastered on his face.

"I'm good daddy!" Lexie put Sofia on the floor and let her rush over to her father with a smile on her face that matched her father's, Lexie smiled as she walked over to her boyfriend and planted a kiss on his forehead. She had no idea as to how she'd tell him that his best friend was currently in a medically induced coma or that said best friend's younger sister was having a craniotomy done by Shadow Shepherd.

"Lex, what's wrong?" he asked knowing that _something _was wrong; her eyes betrayed her as they always did.

"Nothing," she lied terribly, it must have been a Grey family trait.

"Lex, you've got that look in your eyes," he declared with a smile and Lexie babbled on about Derek and Amy's conditions and he tried to keep a smile on his face for the sake of his daughter but he couldn't hide the sadness that he felt. He knew the pain that his best friend was going through and he also knew the fear that Meredith was feeling, the fear of whether their significant other was going to survive or not he'd felt exactly that when Lexie was recovering after the plane crash.

"How's Meredith taking it?" he asked, the first words he'd said since Lexie had told him.

"I don't know, I've not seen her," and just then Mark let all of his emotions out as his blue eyes misted up and he let the coming tears fall down his face. The man he'd called a brother was near death and he was lying in a hospital bed because he'd needed a stupid appendectomy. Never in his life had Mark Sloan felt more helpless.


	4. If I Lose Myself

_**A/N – Last time I gave you a Slexie chapter and now I'm giving you a Japril chapter and for all of you Mer-Der fans their solo chapter will be the next one. I just wanted to establish the whole Japril ship before I did anything majorly Mer-Der with the story.**_

_I stared up at the sun,  
Thought of all of the people, places and things I've loved.  
I stared up just to see  
With all of the faces, you were the one next to me._

It was in his cubby hole, the ring that is, the beautiful Diamond solitaire ring that Jackson had picked out for April. His mind was whirring with thoughts of April. He'd planned what he thought was the perfect proposal, right down to the finest of details and then the earthquake had happened.

Jackson sat in April's hospital room and watched as she slept peacefully, something that seemed rather ironic considering the fact that she'd just been through a massive trauma. She had her bright, happy smile plastered across her face. That was one of the things Jackson loved most about his girlfriend: you could be having the worst possible day and yet one flash of her perfect smile and suddenly you cheered up and your world didn't seem so bad, it was part of what made her such an excellent trauma surgeon.

She'd been asleep for a few hours post-surgery and Jackson had watched her the entire time. He was starting to get sick of staring at the beige walls that created the room and he hadn't heard from April's parents, something that worried him a great deal. His tan hand gripped onto April's pale one, he never wanted to let go for fear of losing his gorgeous red-headed, smiling girlfriend, the one person who could brighten his day, the only one who could make him see sense. He couldn't help but wish that he was in her place, if there was one person who didn't deserve this it was April.

"Jackson?" he heard his name coming from the door and he turned around to see Dr Miranda Bailey stood in the doorway. She had a look of pure concern in her eyes as she attempted to smile at him. "I thought I'd come and see how she was doing but I can come back later," her voice was unusually shaky as she said it.

Jackson quickly wiped away the tears that had crept up on him and out of his eyes before saying "No, come in, have you heard about everyone else?"

Bailey immediately knew that he meant Derek and Mark and so she told him what she knew "Shepherd has a case of Cardiac Tamponade and a dislocated knee cap," she said looking to him as shock began to register on his face "Sloan had to have an emergency appendectomy as well as having a dislocated hip and a fractured tibia," she used the exact same wording that had been used on her when Olivia had told her.

"Oh," Jackson sighed before turning to look at his still sleeping girlfriend, "I was going to propose to her, tonight, the ring's still in my cubby hole," he told Bailey, other than Mark she was the first to know of his plan and now that April was in this condition he felt it necessary to confide his intentions to someone. He'd said it after a few minutes of near silence, the only sound being the beeping of the heart monitor "I don't know if I can live without her, Bailey, what if she doesn't make it? I'm not doubting your skill it's just she had internal bleeding!" he exclaimed through the tears that he'd let stream down his face from his now misty blue eyes.

Bailey moved closer to the former resident and allowed him to bury his head in her shoulder. Miranda Bailey had truly become a second mother to this group; it wasn't too surprising either: Meredith's relationship with her mother had been almost non-existent before Ellis' death; Cristina's mother was far too pushy; Izzie's was considerably overbearing; Alex's was mentally ill; Lexie's was dead and Jackson's was a legend. In fact, April was the only one of the group whose parents were alive, without illness and perfectly proud of their little girl. "Have you told April's parents? About the earthquake and her injuries I mean," she asked, wondering whether Jackson had even thought of it.

He looked up at her before answering "I called them but I only got their answer machine so I left a message," he said not caring that his voice and his eyes betrayed every single emotion he felt at that moment in time. Jackson brushed himself off and wiped his eyes before allowing himself to settle back into his seat.

"I'm going to go check on the others, you gonna be alright?" Bailey asked as she stood up.

"No, I'll be fine," he sighed and Bailey silently left the hospital room.

Jackson sat and waited for another hour, his fingers still weaved in between April's. The beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound to be made as it continued its repetitive monotonous beep. Eventually April's eyelashes fluttered as she attempted to open her eyelids "J-Jackson?" she said in an almost whisper as her eyes focussed in on his face.

He breathed a sigh of relief "April thank god! I thought I'd lost you," he exclaimed tears of joy filling his eyes as he kissed her forehead.

She stared going cross-eyed with confusion as she wondered "W-what happened? Why am I in a hospital bed?"

"T-there was an earthquake babe, y-you ended up with internal bleeding" he said his voice filled with worry.

"Babe? When did we get together?" she asked and all colour left Jackson's face as the realisation of the possibility of memory loss hit him.

"April what's the last thing you remember?" he asked the concern he felt the only thing that kept his voice from being monotonous.

"Umm, I think I was back on the farm and Dr Hunt told me he wanted me to come back here," she replied with bewilderment.

"April that was about nine months ago," Jackson told her before instinctively grabbing his pager and paging Lexie, knowing that April's sudden loss of memory could be caused by the concussion she'd sustained or it could mean that April's cerebrum could have been royally screwed by the piece of concrete that had hit her head in the midst of the quake.


	5. More News From Nowhere

_**A/N – I know I promised you guys a very Mer-Dercentric chapter for this chapter but I couldn't leave the last chapter on such a cliff hanger without continuing the Japril storyline into this chapter, but do not fear Mer-Der lovers, there is a moment for Meredith in this chapter as well.**_

_I walk into the corner of my room, _

_see my friends in high places__  
I don't know which is which and whom is whom,_

_they've stolen each other's faces  
_

Lexie was in April's room as quickly as she could possibly be, before she reached it she was ever-so-slightly worried by Jackson's 911 page. When she walked into the room, however, she found that April was perfectly fine "Jackson, a 911 page means that the patient is either dying or almost dead, now that's clearly not the case so why in the whole wide world of heaven, earth, hell and everything in between was I paged?" she yelled, now slightly annoyed that she'd been paged away from Mark.

"Do a consult," he demanded and when Lexie stood stock still in place with her arms folded across her chest he yelled "Do a goddamn consult Lexie!"

"I'm fine, Jackson, honestly I'm fine," April said in an attempt to re-assure the man who, it turned out, was her boyfriend.

"No you're not fine April, you don't remember a single thing from the past nine months. Nothing about this is fine," he exclaimed worriedly.

Lexie moved forward and checked her friend's eyes to see if they were dilated or not, then asked "Are you feeling dizzy?" April nodded "Tired?" April nodded again "Jackson, it's just the side effects of the concussion, if she doesn't remember within the next few days then you can worry, now I'm going to go back and see Mark," she announced, allowing a small amount of annoyance to come through into the tone of her voice as she said it, before leaving the room.

"Wait did Mark and Lexie get back together?" April asked struggling to hide the element of surprise in her voice.

"Yeah, they got back together just after you got back from Ohio," Jackson told her quietly.

"So they're back together and we're together, what about everyone else?"

"Alex is dating one of the interns, her name's Jo, she seems nice. Meredith and Derek are still together, as are Callie and Arizona. Cristina and Owen got back together, and Bailey and Ben got married a couple of months ago, you were a bridesmaid," he told her desperately trying to smile; it was similar to one of the conversations they'd had when April returned from the farm.

"I was a bridesmaid at Bailey's wedding?" April asked in disbelief, she'd always had the impression that Bailey had greatly disliked her, probably because of the fact that she was permanently smiling and happy.

"Yeah, well they needed someone who wasn't all dark and twisty, Meredith, Callie and Arizona were also bridesmaids, but you were the most beautiful one there, I've got pictures," he said, digging in his pocket to grab his Iphone. He showed April the picture he had on his lock screen which had a picture of April with her arm around Jackson as she planted a kiss on his cheek, she was wearing a deep red strapless dress and her hair was pinned back behind her ears.

"We look really happy," she said with a soft smile.

"We were… are I mean," he replied, his voice equally as soft as April's smile.

"So… we slept together," April said her cheeks going bright red as she did.

"Yeah, we did," Jackson told her, going equally as red.

"Did we? After?" she asked, Jackson shook his head and April was left with no idea what to think about it. Was she annoyed at the fact? Was she relieved? She didn't know, she supposed that she was halfway between the two.

"You were pretty upset about it all; you'd started 're-virginizing' as you put it, " Jackson told her and she laughed at the thought, for somebody who'd lost all memory of the previous nine months she really did act like the new, more relaxed, more confident version of April "You said that you were praying to Justin Timberlake," she laughed again.

"Well I was praying to god but it was in front of my old N*Sync posters so in my mind he looks like a teenage Justin Timberlake," she told him with another laugh but she stopped laughing when she saw a red-eyed Meredith stood in the doorway "Meredith," she said somewhat shocked "Are you okay?"

"I… it's Derek, Cristina had to do pericardiocentesis on him because of Cardiac Tamponade and he keeps seizing, it's like the plane crash all over again," she said before bursting into tears "I don't… know what to do," she cried as she walked into the room.

"Meredith it'll be okay, Cristina's amazing at what she does, he'll be fine," April tried to re-assure her friend.

"But what if she can't save him? If I lost him I… I don't know what I'd do," she sobbed it was sheer desperation.

"Look he'll be fine, he's a fighter remember? Look at his hand, we thought that was screwed and look at it now," Jackson told her calmly.

"Yeah, yeah I don't know why I'm worrying really," Meredith said quietly.


End file.
